"Mhysa" follow-up

In which I promise to have complaints other than "where in the seven hells was Stoneheart?"

So. Episode 9 is the whammy and then Episode 10 is the denouement/Dany does something awesome episode. We know how this works.


So we start with Greyrobb Windstark, with a really really giant gap between Robb's body and Grey Wind's head just in case you thought they'd scooped out Grey Wind's skull and plopped it down on top of Robb's head. Uh. I was kinda "meh" on that. Unlike "I heard you lost your nose," "Meereenese Knot," etc, which are just bits of fanservice* thrown into an already-existing scene, this entire scene is fanservice. And, uh, frankly, I've seen more realistic-looking things on Doctor Who. I mean classic Doctor Who.

*By which I mean serving the fans of the books, as opposed to gratuitous nudity. And I would have gladly sacrificed every example of fanservice that made it into the show for one "I only rescue maidens."

The Tyrion/Tywin scene is perfect (Good Guy Tywin didn't drown Tyrion. Still a better father than Randyll Tarly). The Bolton/Frey scene exists to... uh... tell everyone "Yup, I'm evil." "Yup. I liked how you killed Robb." "Indeed. Let me stroke my nonexistent goatee."  Didn't need it, and this is from a subscriber to r/Dreadfort.

Rat Cook scene, serviceable. Jaime got back to King's Landing early. Well, he has 3 chapters left in the book; they have to stretch that out over an entire season somehow. Bran has 3 chapters left in the entire series. So good luck with that. And Daenerys Targaryen invents crowd-surfing about five episodes after her secret nephew invented oral sex. Innovations all around this year.  SO... is Dany staying in Yunkai? I didn't see Meereen on the map...

So Jon Snow tells people about his family's pet human Pokemon mentally disabled servant. Uh, okay... Arya finally gets to deliberately kill someone... And there was a scene between Shae and Varys that makes no sense regardless of whether you've finished Dance or not.

I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent. One of the most powerful storytelling experiences I've ever had was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first time. Up until then, it had basically been Star Trek and Doctor Who. And what Buffy did that those shows didn't was never cut away right when it really hurts.  Angel turns evil and torments Buffy and the scene just won't stop. This is of course taken up to an art form in the episode "The Body" which is an entire 45 minutes of reaction to one character's death. After we saw numerous reaction videos from non-readers to the Red Wedding, I would have liked to see the characters react to it.  Only Arya really does, and even then not for long. Instead of Roose and Walder gloating about how evil they were, how about giving us more than five seconds of wordless tears from Sansa? Am I too much of a sadistic git for wanting to know how Tyrion, the son of the guy who orchestrated the murder of her mother and brother, tried to comfort her?

On to the pure speculation. Is Gendry done? Sending him to King's Landing is a freaking awful idea... I had the sinking suspicion that having replaced Edric Storm, he'd next replace Ser Dontos, but then I remembered that Littlefinger has already left, so his plot needs to have already been underway.

And slightly more importantly, what in the seven hells is Asha Yara Asha doing? Let's recap. In the books she appears in Clash (book 2), last seen leaving Theon at Winterfell, and is a POV starting in Feast (book 4), where she's back on the Iron Islands trying to beat her uncles for her father's crown. Then in Dance she's back in the North. So my question is... are they simplifying her plotline, or are they expanding it? Only time will tell.

Now, overall, how do I feel about padding out the season and splitting it in half so as to have the Red Wedding be Episode 9? Well, you cut out all of the foreshadowing and, well... re-reading A Storm of Swords, the Catelyn chapters tend to feel like "X many chapters until I get my throat slit." It may be too early to pass judgment, but I don't really think it was a good idea.

By the way, where in the seven hells was Stoneheart?